Enhancing South Africans universities engagement during student recruitment through social media marketing

Social media platforms are popular amongst young people and offer excellent platforms to communicate with this target market. Communication between higher education institutions and potential new students is the focus of this research. This paper explores students' perceptions of the use of social media marketing in student recruitment done by South African higher education institutions. The aim is to suggest guidelines for the formulation of social media marketing strategies to improve influence on students in the selection of an institution. A qualitative research methodology is employed, using a multimethod approach to data collection, including a conceptual analysis and focus groups. Grade 11 and 12 students, selected from school's representative of the five different school quintiles, are included in the research sample. Ten guidelines evolved from the data with the most prominent being engagement, relationship building and an increase in the use of creative visual content to disseminate practical application information.